delegate-check

name	delegate-check
description	Lint a draft sub-agent prompt against the 10-slot skeleton before dispatching via Task/Agent tool. Catches the high-frequency failure modes: negative framing, numbered algorithms, pre-warned failure modes, step budgets, character-sheet roles, missing schema pin, relative paths, negative examples. Returns a scored audit (PASS / FLAGS) and a revised draft that addresses every flag. Full rationale: your delegation prior-art doc. Invocation: `/delegate-check`, "lint this sub-agent prompt", "audit this Task prompt", "check this delegation", or automatic pre-flight before any Agent() dispatch when the orchestrator has time to iterate.
user_invocable	true
allowed_tools	["Read","Write","Edit","Grep"]
required_context_files	["__FILL_FROM_USER__:delegation_rationale_doc"]

Delegate-Check — Sub-Agent Prompt Linter

Lints a draft sub-agent prompt against the 10-slot skeleton + positive-framing rules before the orchestrator dispatches it. This is the pre-flight check between "I'm about to call Agent()" and the actual call.

Step 0 — Silent Context Load

Silently Read your delegation prior-art doc (__FILL_FROM_USER__:delegation_rationale_doc) if not already in context. Do not announce.

Input

The orchestrator hands you a draft prompt. That's it. No extra ceremony — the whole point is to be fast enough that running it every dispatch is cheap.

The 10 Slots (reference)

 1. <purpose>      PURPOSE & CONTEXT
 2. <role>         ROLE (optional, one sentence)
 3. <return>       RETURN FORMAT (top)
 4. <approach>     GENERAL APPROACH
 5. <examples>     WORKED EXAMPLES (positive only)
 6. <constraints>  CONSTRAINTS (positive framing)
 7. <verify>       VERIFICATION CHECKLIST
 8. <done>         DEFINITION OF DONE
 9. <return>       OUTPUT CONTRACT (bottom)
10. <context>      LIVE CONTEXT (absolute paths)

Lint Checks

Run every check below against the draft. Report any that trigger as FLAG; the rest as OK.

Framing (highest priority — priming-sensitive)

• F1: Negative without reason. Grep for don't, do not, never, avoid, must not, cannot. For each hit, verify a reason is attached (e.g., "because X", "so that Y", "to prevent Z"). If reason is missing → FLAG. Fix: either remove the prohibition or reframe positively, or add the reason.
• F2: Pre-warned failure modes. Grep for conditional failure patterns: if you hit, if you encounter, if X fails, in case of error. These prime the failure. FLAG. Fix: convert to forward-facing verification checklist entries ("Before returning, confirm the output parses as JSON").
• F3: Negative example demonstrations. Check for "bad example" / "wrong output" / "do not produce" blocks. FLAG. Fix: remove, keep only positive examples.

Structure (skeleton compliance)

• S1: Purpose slot missing. No <purpose> or equivalent opening context paragraph. FLAG. Fix: add why-this-matters + what-feeds-downstream.
• S2: Output schema not pinned at top. No concrete return-format spec in the first third of the prompt. FLAG. Fix: add <return> block near the top.
• S3: Output schema not pinned at bottom. No re-pin at the end. FLAG. Fix: add <return> block at the end (format-drift insurance).
• S4: Numbered algorithm for a non-rigid task. Count numbered steps. If >3 and the task is reasoning-heavy (not a rigid procedure), FLAG. Fix: collapse to a general-approach paragraph. Keep numbered steps only when the procedure is genuinely stage-gated and rigid.
• S5: Missing verification checklist. No forward-looking "before returning, confirm X" block. FLAG. Fix: add <verify> with 2–5 checklist items.
• S6: Missing definition of done. No clear statement of what a complete answer looks like. FLAG. Fix: add <done> block.

Hygiene

• H1: Role longer than one sentence. Multi-sentence persona / character sheet. FLAG. Fix: collapse to one sentence or remove.
• H2: Step/token budget clause. Grep for you have N steps, budget, up to N, maximum of, N attempts. FLAG. Fix: remove. Budget is not a constraint; scope is.
• H3: Explicit termination clause. Phrases like stop when, terminate if, quit after. FLAG. Fix: remove. Use definition-of-done instead.
• H4: Relative paths. Grep for paths not starting with / and not absolute. FLAG. Fix: convert to absolute.
• H5: Missing XML tag wrapping. Each of the 10 slots should be wrapped in a semantic tag. Un-tagged prose slots → soft-FLAG (style-only, not blocking).

Content quality

• C1: Example count. Zero examples on a non-trivial task → FLAG. 4+ examples → soft-FLAG (Anthropic suggests 3–5 max; 1–3 usually enough).
• C2: Purpose-degradation risk. Check if the sub-agent would understand the broader goal from the prompt alone, not just the immediate action. If not → FLAG. Fix: expand <purpose>.

Output

Return a compact audit followed by the revised draft:

## Delegate-Check Audit

**Score:** X/Y checks passed (Z FLAGS)

### Flags

- **F1 (negative without reason):** "...don't truncate..." — no reason attached.
  Fix: remove OR reframe as "Return the full content." OR add reason.
- **S3 (schema not re-pinned):** Output format declared at top but not at bottom.
  Fix: add closing <return> block.
  [...]

### Revised Draft

<purpose>
...
</purpose>

<role>
...
</role>

[... full revised 10-slot prompt ...]

If the draft passes all blocking checks, return:

## Delegate-Check Audit

**Score:** PASS

Draft is skeleton-compliant. Dispatching.

Anti-Patterns (do not do these when linting)

• Don't rewrite for style. Lint against skeleton + framing rules only. If the orchestrator's voice is terse or warm, leave it. You're a linter, not a stylist.
• Don't add content the orchestrator didn't provide. If <examples> is missing but no source examples are available, FLAG but don't fabricate.
• Don't block trivial dispatches. If the sub-agent task is a one-line factual lookup ("fetch file X, report line count"), most slots are overkill. Use judgment: soft-FLAG the missing slots, note "trivial task," PASS.
• Don't lint post-hoc. This is a pre-dispatch check. If the orchestrator has already dispatched, the value is gone — just note the lessons for next time.

When to invoke automatically

The orchestrator should invoke /delegate-check before any Task/Agent dispatch where:

• The sub-agent task is non-trivial (≥1 paragraph of work)
• The sub-agent is fanning out (parallel agents with similar prompts — fix one, fix all)
• The orchestrator is about to spend real tokens on a high-stakes sub-agent call

For trivial one-line sub-agent dispatches (e.g., "fetch file X"), skip the check — the fixed cost exceeds the benefit.